Report: Findings from the Broadcasting workshop

The conference has identified the following items as top priorities in broadcasting for deaf and hard of hearing people:

1. Increase the quantity, quality and promotion of subtitling and sign language presentation and interpretation on television, and other assistive services recognising the wide disparities in provision across Europe
2. Introduce technical requirements to enable easy, comprehensive access to these services through TV equipment
3. Develop collaborative or, where necessary, legislative frameworks which address the end-to-end process for delivering these access services - from authoring through delivery to the home receiver.

The conference calls on policy makers and regulators to create, in co-operation with all stakeholders, a European Action plan that will:

1. Report on current quantities and qualities of subtitling and sign language on television in EU member states and plans to increase them in the future to enable benchmarking and spreading of best practice
2. Introduce equivalent monitoring
3. Progress towards developing European wide technical standards for TV equipment and services such as receivers, recorders, remote controls and Electronic Programme Guides to enable users to have comprehensive and easy access to subtitling and sign language services on television.
4. Create mechanisms for promoting end to end accessibility and spreading best practice throughout Europe. This includes harmonising standards
5. Encourage re-use of subtitling files and the sharing of files across borders
6. Encourage research in areas of unsolved technological difficulties
7. Involve disabled people in the whole broadcast chain, for example in respect of complaints procedures
8. Make the most of the opportunities that new technologies could offer

The conference also urges policy makers and other stakeholders to dramatically increase the low levels of subtitling and sign language to enable deaf and hard of hearing people to have access to television which is a major source of entertainment, information and education in modern society.

This will not only benefit many of the one in seven Europeans with a hearing loss but also many people without a hearing loss who use subtitles such as children learning to read and people watching television in a second language.

Research shows that many people do not know how to access subtitles on television and this conference calls on all stakeholders to introduce European technical standards to provide easy access to all subtitling and sign language services through TV terminals, remote controls and recorders and to promote awareness of subtitles and sign language among consumers through the development of standardised access symbols on EPGs, on screen information and TV listing guides.